4 - Leonardo da Vinci (follower of)

Leonardo da Vinci (follower of) Grotesque Head of an Old Woman in Profile graphite on laid paper 141 x 94 cm A unique study of a head depicting an elderly woman in right-side profile, her head wrapped in a headdress and her face rendered with extraordinary attention to physiognomic details. The strongly pronounced nose, marked by a noticeable growth; the sunken eye; the tightly closed mouth; and the pointed chin combine to create a physiognomy deliberately far removed from any ideal of beauty.It is precisely this exploration of the irregular and the individual that links the drawing to the figurative tradition that developed around Leonardo da Vinci. Alongside his studies of proportion and his famous idealized heads, Leonardo in fact devoted constant attention to faces marked by age and to unusual features, sometimes exaggerating their characteristics to the point of creating those famous “character heads” or “exaggerated heads” that enjoyed immense popularity among his followers.In this drawing, however, the grotesque element does not appear to be an end in itself: the artist seems to be observing a real face, focusing almost curiously on the deformation of the nose and the signs of aging. The delicate linework, accompanied by dense hatching in the shaded areas, focuses attention on the eye socket and the lower part of the face, while the headdress is rendered using a freer interplay of overlapping lines.The sheet thus constitutes a striking testament to the enduring influence of Leonardo’s physiognomy in the sixteenth century, when the human types developed by the master continued to circulate, be copied, and reinterpreted within his circle and by subsequent generations.